


A Tapping Sound of Rain

by Chisotahn



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, p4week2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 08:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1737746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chisotahn/pseuds/Chisotahn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Investigation Team must come to Hisano's rescue, they learn that some battles are fought differently than the ways they've become used to. Written for #P4Week2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tapping Sound of Rain

**Author's Note:**

> For #P4Week2014 - favorite NPC social link. Hisano really needs more love... so I show that love by throwing her into the TV. Well done, me. 
> 
> Thanks to bedsafely and chocotaur on Tumblr for starting this fanfest, and of course to my dear Frigoris for her always-excellent beta and suggestions.

_As on this day_  
after I die also  
there will come again  
from young persimmon leaves  
a tapping sound of rain. 

_\- Taeko Takaori_

 

The map of Hisano's soul wasn't what Souji thought it would be.

Really, he shouldn't ever have had a chance to know what kind of imprint she might make on the TV world. She was a touchstone, a reminder that there was a world beyond the murders. She should never have ended up here.

But someone had the idea of interviewing people in the main shopping district about "changes to the community." The segment had made it onto the morning news - not just Hisano, but several others too, including Kanji's mother. Evidently there had been a lot of shouting in the Tatsumi household after that one, given that Kanji couldn't exactly explain why going on TV was a dangerous proposition. Still, despite everyone's unease Souji was fairly confident that anyone who tried to go after Kanji's mom would be taken out in spectacular fashion.

And then the Midnight Channel had fizzed onto the TV screen with black-and-white images like something out of an old drama. The first sight of what looked like a younger Hisano, writing a letter, had called up a towering anger that eclipsed everything else. How _dare_ the killer do this, take a person that was supposed to be safe-

Yosuke's phone call had snapped him out of that, at least, transmuting that anger into something he could actually use.

And now they were here, inside the TV after a school day that had felt like eternity. Rise had pinpointed Hisano's location; Souji had been expecting a graveyard, perhaps, or a hospital, but they'd ended up in front of a traditional house, all wood and tatami and shoji screens, faded at the edges like an old photograph. A unlikely soft rain fell around them, tumbling out of the violent red-and-black sky to become something far gentler once it reached the house.

Souji took a deep breath and climbed up the few steps that led to the door of the house; the stairs were faintly worn in the middle, as if many others had walked this way before. Souji reached for the sliding door and hesitated.

A hand brushed his shoulder. "I think she's fine," Rise said, quietly. "I can feel her."

Souji looked back at her, then nodded, trying to ignore his worries - _fine for how long? she's old, the strain could-_ He opened the door with a quick, sharp movement, as if trying to throw away his fear at the same time; the door rattled on its track, and one of his fingers left a tear in the paper screen.

Another deep breath - he smelled dust. Paper. Ashes. Flowers, for some reason. "Let's go."

 

So they went, moving through room after room, all soft light and dusty traditional furniture, dead flowers delicately balanced in vases long since gone dry, and the ever-present hush of rain. It was Yukiko who first noticed the writing on the shoji screens, writing that got clearer the deeper they went into the structure, until the walls were made of letters that spilled out of the screen frames and over the tatami floors. Small Shadows worked their way free from the ink and pooled under the furniture; every battle laid waste to whatever room they were in, leaving behind tatters of paper and torn tatami. It was all so fragile.

Fragile, and strangely peaceful - almost too peaceful. Souji actually felt relieved when the first acrid whiff of antiseptic reached his nose. That was more in line with what he'd expected, and when they approached the next door, he fully expected to open the door into a duplicate of Inaba’s hospital.

Instead, he got a faded, grey darkness, a floor that crumbled away at the touch of light, leaving long strokes of ink edged in brittle paper as the only sure footing. “Stay close,” he ordered, as Yukiko carefully called up Amaterasu, the Persona’s very nature serving to bring light to the void.

The half-twilight only deepened, the further they went. Souji pushed them harder than usual - two days took them from the fragile past into near-complete darkness, only broken by Amaterasu’s light and the flashlights they brought back with them the second day. Hisano's own age was perhaps a greater danger than the Shadows; everyone else had been young, resilient. Rise offered reassurance as often as she could, but that fear remained. 

Then, at last, they finished clearing a path through the void of ink and broken edges and found a wall - a wall with a door. Souji was tending to Chie's ankle - just a sprain, easily mended - when Rise made a soft noise. "She's close," Rise said in response to Souji's instant questioning look. "But I can feel the Shadow, too. They're... in the next room. Together."

“Then we have to keep going,” Chie said, scrambling to her feet the instant the healing spell took hold. "Right, Souji?”

They were tired, but - no, there could be no hesitation. "Right," Souji said, looking over the rest of the team and seeing the resolve in their eyes. "Thanks." He moved for the door, shoving it open, expecting utter blackness.

Instead, there was a flare of pure white light, so bright that they all had to cover their eyes. Souji stumbled forward, squinting to try and get any indication of what was ahead. The smell of antiseptic was stronger here, and after so many ink-dark rooms moving into that white felt like stepping into nothingness.

There was only one thing there to interrupt the empty white. A hospital bed, he realized, and there was Hisano, perched on the edge the bed.

No, not just Hisano. Two of her-

-holding hands?

He stopped, though he kept his sword up in guard position, and heard the team pile up behind him. "Kuroda-san-"

She looked at him, and smiled. "Ah... there you are, child," as if they were on the riverbank, as if he wasn't carrying a sword. "I thought it might be you."

He lowered the blade cautiously, keeping one eye on the Shadow next to her. "You... you're all right?" he asked, inching forward, signaling the team to stay back as he slowly advanced. The Shadow didn’t seem immediately hostile. Strange.

"As well as can be expected," Hisano replied. "This place, Souji-kun... it's so strange. I was afraid, at first. But this isn't Heaven, is it? My husband isn't here."

"No, it isn't," he said, with a faint smile. "But we'll take you back home." The Shadow shifted, and he tensed, but it _still_ didn't seem to be making any move to attack, or even speak.

Hisano sighed. "I thought not. When I came here, it was me in the bed. Not him." The Shadow's eyes flickered yellow, and Hisano squeezed its hands in her own. "We said terrible things to each other, Souji-kun."

He moved closer, putting a bit more distance between them and the rest of the team. "What kind of things?" Was her mind still strong? The TV world could be devastating to any psyche, and he knew the elderly were more vulnerable to distortions of reality.

"The things I had told only you." Her soft laugh was almost startling, compared to his tension. "My pride, my bitterness. My loss. I expected it to hurt - _we_ expected it, I think." She patted the Shadow's folded hands. "But I remembered you, Souji-kun, and what you said to me. I threw the weight of my sins at myself and was not crushed."

The thought of _that's not how it's supposed to go_ was so strong that Souji nearly said it aloud. "You aren't... you're not afraid of..." 

Her gentle smile was immediate. "Oh, Souji-kun. I have had a long, long time to come to terms with myself - and I had you to think of, child, when it hurt the most. Everything I had to say to myself, I said to you first. The battle was already won."

The Shadow smiled, then nodded once before shimmering into soft light - and no Persona appeared, but the light haloed Hisano's form and when she reached for her cane her back seemed a little straighter, her steps a little lighter.

_The battle was already won._

Was that what they'd been doing together, all this time?

Souji didn't realize he was staring until he felt the light touch of her free hand on his arm. "You said you'd take me home, dear?"

"... Yes! Yes," he said quickly, turning back to the others.

"I got it," Yosuke said, fumbling in his pockets until he came up with a Goho-M. "Er... ready, ma'am?"

Hisano nodded, her grip on Souji's arm tightening just a little. "Go ahead, young man."

...............

 

They managed to explain a little on the way back to the backlot, Hisano nodding gravely at their concerns, promising to keep their secrets - and then they were spilling out of the TV into the electronics department at Junes, saved from figuring out what to do next by Hisano herself. "I was lost, wasn't I?" she said, simply, leaning on her cane. "That is all. My children will lecture me terribly, and want me to move a little sooner... I don't mind that."

So they 'found' her on the edge of the shopping district (accessed through one of the employee-only exits of Junes), and the responding squad car came with an ambulance, just to be safe, even as Hisano merrily insisted that she was just fine. As they lifted her onto the stretcher, Hisano gestured to Souji, and she took his hand as soon as he was close enough. Her grip was warm, and surprisingly strong.

"Thank you for coming for me, Souji-kun - for coming today, and for meeting me by the river."

He squeezed back, and nodded. "You're welcome, Kuroda-san."

The Investigation Team stood in silence as the squad car and ambulance drove away - at least, until Kanji opened his mouth. "Damn, but that's one badass old lady."

Souji really couldn't disagree.


End file.
